


Kiss Me Once Again

by Rubynye



Series: Thematic Series: Death and Sex [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bisexuality, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fingerfucking, First Time, Grief/Mourning, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Multiple Pairings, Multiple Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 15:14:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1609691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the alcohol fails, Peggy decides to succeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss Me Once Again

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "It's been a long, long time", which, by providing the title, provided the final piece I needed to write this story.
> 
> All Thanks To: [](http://azephirin.livejournal.com/profile)[**azephirin**](http://azephirin.livejournal.com/) and [](http://dsudis.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://dsudis.livejournal.com/)**dsudis** for cheering me on.  
> 

"The first time I ever had a hard drink," Steve says slowly, holding his empty glass, "Bucky gave it to me." His other hand is folded around Peggy's, big warm fingers gently cradling hers. She sits here in this bombed out cafe, the floor crunching with cinders and the air tinged with smoke, beside a rough little table with Steve grieving before her. "He was thirteen," Steve continues, turning the glass in his hand, staring at it as if he could shatter it with the new hardness in his eyes. "Thirteen and curious, so he swiped a beer and brought it to me. He took a sip, made a face, then swore it was delicious and handed it over. I drank the whole thing. I got so completely drunk he had to carry me home, over his shoulder like a blanket. It would've served him right if I'd thrown up down his back."

Steve smiles, of sorts, a haggard quirk of the lips which brings out the new lines in his face, inlaid with glittering tear tracks. Peggy reaches across before she's properly thought, smoothing the wetness off his cheek, and Steve's eyes flare wide and crimp shut; she starts to pull back but he drops the glass and clutches her retreating hand to his cheek, turning his face beneath her fingers. He presses a kiss to her palm, so passionately heat flares within her despite herself; he muffles a sob against her hand, then another, and she has to clutch his other hand and press her booted soles to the floor to keep from knocking the table aside and wrapping her arms around him.

Steve shudders once more, his eyelids creasing, and eases Peggy's hand away, an awful ripple going across his face as he wrestles his emotions down. "We should get back," he says, voice soft and flat, gaze fallen to the floor. "It's getting late."

But he doesn't move, and Peggy remembers that Barnes has bunked with him since their return from Austria, or, rather, _had_. The last place Steve should go is an empty room full of agonizing memories, at least not alone, and Peggy can't go there with him… but she thinks of where she can. "Yes we should," she agrees, and Steve looks at her wide-eyed as if he'd forgotten she was there, even with both his hands wrapped around hers. "What would you rather?"

"What do I…?" Steve blinks, breathes, and shakes his head. "I don't know."

"Would you rather be alone?" Peggy's been where he is, and she wouldn't recommend it.

"No," Steve answers vehemently, then hears himself and immediately starts to backtrack, "But you don't have to --"

"I want to." Peggy stands as gracefully as she can while still holding Steve's hands, and he looks up at her as if she shone in the darkness. It's a heady feeling, gazing down into his earnest face, and she swallows hard and takes a bracing breath of the charred air, reminding herself to be reasonable. "I choose to," she tells him, tugging gently. "Come on, Captain Rogers, let's go."

Steve nods, stands as well, and only then lets go her far hand. The near one he clasps like a lifeline, and lets Peggy lead him.

 

\---v--- 

 

Peggy has heard of alternate uses for the supply closets, of course, and she's been careful never to enter them after hours, not before. Fortunately, no one else has chosen the one she thought of, with its good level crates of typist's paper, and if she's ever to bend her self-imposed rules, this is the time. Squeezing Steve in is almost comical, his shoulders filling the span between the shelves and the door, and when Peggy shuts them inside it's a moment or three before their eyes adjust. Steve finds her hand then, as they wait in the darkness, and Peggy breathes with him, feeling his warmth suffusing the close air as his fingers interlace with hers, and could almost forget everything outside.

Almost, and never. Steve comes into focus, lit from below by the gap beneath the door; he looks a little less sweet, a little more rugged, and even as she admires the sight it seems a shame that he's no longer the compact greathearted man she first met, his once-optimistic face now creased with weariness. Instead of saying such things, Peggy undoes her tie, then unbuttons her jacket, and smiles as Steve's astonishment blooms. "We could use a little upholstery," she explains as she shrugs the jacket off and drapes it over the crate, setting her tie on a shelf behind them.

She's about to sit, but Steve stops her with a light, lingering touch to her elbow; he peels out of his jacket and tosses it over the crate as well, of course, and waves such a gentlemanly hand of invitation that she could absolutely kiss him. So when he sits down beside her she does, very gently with closed lips, her hand on his shoulder, his shirt crisp over the banked furnace beneath his skin. Before she forgets she undoes his tie as well, slipping her fingers up around his columnar throat to tug it free, reaching back by touch to set it beside hers, kissing him almost chastely all the while.

Steve trembles against her mouth, his chest hitching, his fingers hovering alongside her cheek. "Can I?" he breathes, and Peggy unfastens his collar as she nods, brushing her lips over his.

And Steve lets go of himself, and grabs hold of her, just as she'd hoped. He plunges his hand into her hair, wraps his broad arm around her waist, kisses her cracklingly hard and sobs into the kiss, tasting of whisky and heat and salt. Peggy hums soothingly and holds on, keeping up as best she can as Steve delves urgently into her mouth, as he pulls her so tightly to his side her ribs creak. She doesn't mind, she better than doesn't mind, he moans into her and her moan echoes his, her arms winding of their own accord around his neck. Steve shudders hard and pulls his mouth away and Peggy wants to lean forward, to chase the kiss, but he hasn't let go, his fingers clenched in her hair, so she kisses his cloth-covered wrist, trying to convince herself to let go so she can unbutton his cuff.

"God, Peggy," he puffs over her cheek, and kisses her there. "It seems like it shouldn't be right, but…" Peggy draws breath to ask, to reassure, but Steve kisses her mouth again, laughing low into it so her lips tingle. "When my Mom died," he murmurs between kisses, and she nods, brushing her lips along his chin. "Bucky's folks took me in, and Bucky… he took me into his bed, the night after her funeral." He chuckles again, even as a hot tear rolls down his chin; Peggy kisses it away and he sighs, squeezing her ever more tightly. "Maybe he'd approve." Another tingling, sweet-salt kiss, and Peggy hums agreement, burying her hand in Steve's soft hair to hold him, to press the kiss deeper.

Steve kisses her so long and so thoroughly her careful thoughts melt into the sheer heated sensations, of him broad and trembling tucked to her, of the sweet burn in her scalp, of the dance of their lips and tongues. When he pulls away Peggy gasps, hears her own uncontrolled noise, feels herself blush.

Steve pants against her cheek, a warm rush of breath between his tender lips. "Thank you," he murmurs, loosing his fingers from her hair to gather it gently, his palm curving to her skull. "Thank you. I couldn't go back alone…"

"Always," Peggy tells him before her thinking mind catches up; she blinks into the dimness, sighs surrender, and allows herself. "I'm here with you. You're not alone."

Steve shakes all through, breathing a soft pained sound, then a frank sob, and kisses Peggy fervently, pulling her up to him, her rump off the seat. Bracing her arm around his neck to help hold herself up, she strokes his cheek as she kisses back and squirms up over his lap. Her thigh rides an unmistakeable long bump, and Steve shudders again, a sharp startled noise deep in his throat.

Peggy breaks the kiss this time to take a deep breath, trying to marshal her thoughts for the matter at hand. The air's full of Steve's warm scent, so it's rather more intoxication than less, and she has to smile, goes on to press her smile against Steve's cheek "May I help you with that?" she murmurs low, and his chest heaves hard enough to shift her, he gulps audibly and nods beneath her mouth.

Unwinding her fingers from Steve's hair, Peggy presses her palm to his chest and makes herself think about more than the broad muscle under her touch. Prophylactics are readily available at the dispensaries, but she's always made a point of never being seen to carry any. For the first time she regrets that. "Do you have…?"

"Rubbers?" Steve shakes his head. "Buck put one in my pocket just last week to tease me, but I took it out again…" He quivers with memory and loss, Peggy kisses his cheek, and even as he sobs again he turns to catch her mouth with his. She can feel him brace himself by this kiss, how he tamps down his tears, and her heart aches; she can feel all of him indeed, fuzzing her head more thoroughly than any drink.

Still, first things first, if they are to get out of here with any presentability. Peggy leans back, laying her head on Steve's shoulder, reaches down and finds her jacket pocket. What she does carry includes handkerchiefs, and she pulls one out and lays it across Steve's thigh, trailing her fingers after it across hard muscle, because she can, because he didn't fall in the Alps, because she should have kissed him like this long ago. And yet, there's almost a breach of purity in crossing this line.

Peggy takes a deeper breath, tasting Steve on the air, and slides her hand between his legs, along the length of him. He hisses and whimpers, "Please," a desperation she'd never thought to hear from him, a galvanizing sound of desire.

"Yes, of course, yes." Peggy pulls her other hand down to undo his trousers as quickly as she can; he presses his cheek to her brow and watches her hands work, shifting his hips at her unvoiced direction, and soon they have his clothes safely out of the way and his cock bare, hot with life in her hold and somewhat challengingly proportioned. "Well, this will take two hands," Peggy says, mostly to hear Steve chuckle, to feel his blush against her forehead. She lifts one to lick her fingers, but Steve catches her wrist and pulls her hand up to his own mouth, kisses her palm again and then sucks her first two fingers between those soft lips of his, winding his tongue wetly around them in a manner that makes her rather wish she had a tadger too.

"Would you rather?" she asks, and then lets herself look up at the stunning sight, lets the rush of heat sweep through her as she watches and feels Steve suckle her fingers. If she knelt she could probably fit between him and the door, but she doesn't want to shift from beneath his arm wrapped around her.

Steve shakes his head and shifts Peggy's hand down enough to speak. "No, please stay here, I… I'd rather hold you."

Peggy smiles, because she can't not, and curls her fingers a little more firmly around his cock. "Good, because I'd rather hold you," she says, and can see his blush deepen even in this low light. She reclaims her hand and licks her palm quickly, then wraps it around his cock, taking as long of strokes as she can, glans to base and up again. She tips her head back, watching his lips part and his lowered eyelids crinkle, as his breathing roughens and the crate creaks beneath his clutching hand. "Steve," she murmurs as he fills all her perceptions, and he moans wordlessly and leans forward to kiss her again.

Peggy moans in return, because this is so inescapably good. They kiss and gasp and kiss, breathing into each other, Steve's whole magnificent frame shuddering beneath her touch, and she wishes she had a thousand hands to peel his uniform away and caress him all over. She needs the two she has, both not quite spanning his cock, and for awhile she loses herself in the slide of plush skin over blood-hot rigidity, in the bracing press of Steve's arm along her back, his hand trembling tight around her waist, his sweet desperate kisses. He's dampening with rousedness, bedewing her hands, and she wishes she could taste, but he's grown breathless, his hips rocking up into her touch, it would be cruel to even pause now. So she holds on, stilling her hands and letting his thrusts take over, as the tension in him draws tighter and tighter until he groans against her aching lips and cries out, as he pulses in her hold and she's so busied with absorbing every sensation she almost forgets the handkerchief.

But she remembers, in time to save their uniforms, holding it lightly in place as Steve gasps over her mouth, his arm so tight she can't breathe. Her head swims with arousal more than air starvation, she gasps to him and he kisses her as if to lend her his breath, softly yet openmouthed, at lovely length. "Oh," Steve moans as Peggy gathers the handkerchief together, barely a word, and she smiles as best she can over the heat pulsing through her, shifting her thighs a little and trying not to think of her wringing-wet knickers. Fortunately the barracks' hot water supply has gone off again, because she will surely need that cold shower.

Steve lets go of the crate to cup her cheek again, kisses her more firmly and breathes, "You too, Peggy, you too."

"Steve?" Peggy drops the handkerchief to the floor, hoping she can remember to retrieve it later, and wraps her arm around Steve's still-heaving ribs.

"You have to, don't you want to?" A fervent kiss punctuates his words. "Please, let me touch you. Show me how, please."

It's Peggy's turn to moan, "Oh," momentarily stunned by delighted lust, to kiss Steve forcefully before she can pull at least a scrap of thought into her head. "Oh, let me…" She shifts again, draping her legs over his lap, parting them as much as skirt and slip will allow. "I should --" and then she thinks better. "Help me get my knickers down?"

Steve nods, and kisses her, and her cheek misses his fingers but her thigh very much welcomes them, long and broad and tentatively sliding up her skirt. He looks down to watch what he's doing, trailing his fingertips along the crease of her thigh, and Peggy closes her eyes, tips her forehead to rest on Steve's cheek and just feels him feel her as he palms her belly, splaying his hand to touch as much as possible. "Go on," she murmurs, pressing her hand flat over his side, and with the lightest grip possible he tugs at her waistband.

Predictably, this does very little to remove Peggy's underthings, and as Steve huffs she laughs gently and kisses his chin. "They won't tear so easily."

Steve hums thoughtfully and slips his whole hand inside, and just the warm breadth of it makes Peggy draw in a sharp breath. "I can fit, right?" He strokes downward, gently cupping her entire mound, and they both gasp. "Oh, Peggy," Steve whispers, "Oh, you feel…"

Peggy hums encouragement, but her throat tightens on a spike of chill worry that even he might resort to crudities in such a moment. "Steve?" she asks, and hears her voice wobble.

Steve spreads his fingers, his gentle touch tingling up through her to bubble over in an undignified whimper of delight. "Wonderful," he murmurs; she needn't have worried, she kisses his cheek and feels his smile spread beneath her lips. "You feel wet and silky and wonderful, and I -- _oh_ ," as he parts her, and oh, the exquisite tactility of his big lovely fingers. "So soft and delicate --"

She aches with his words, Steve's rapt description too rousing to be borne; she kisses his chin demandingly, letting herself growl, and Steve groans and turns his face to her, their mouths meeting, their moans mingling. She can't stay still, she rocks into his touch as he strokes her, as his other hand slides up her side, bracing her differently, his warm fingers curving to cup her breast through blouse and brassiere; Peggy writhes between Steve's hands, abandons herself to him, lets him carry her for a surging moment. His thumb slides across her button and her shudder shakes her cry loose; he hums to her and strokes again, harder, and hot lights flash behind her eyes as she sobs a 'yes' into his mouth.

Which rather crushes the word, so Steve pulls back from the kiss, but blessedly doesn't stop stroking. "Peggy? Good?"

It takes a moment to even form, "Yes, oh yes," to coordinate herself enough to push her hand up his tossing chest and long throat to cup his chin. "In me," she orders, and Steve gasps, shuddering all over. "Two fingers, inside me, just as you were, I want to feel --" His breath rushing in a rapid tide over her face, his thumb stroking all the while, Steve complies, and Peggy's words fall apart into rather a shriek as she squeezes around him moving inside her. She should let him speak or ask or whatever he's drawn breath for, but she grips his ear and crushes their mouths together, because she's so damn close and she knows she can't be quiet.

She's not, at all, she screams as she hasn't in a long, long time, bursting up from her diaphragm as pleasure crests within her in exquisite pulses. Steve shudders with her, moaning with her, hardening up against his belly, and she presses her thighs's friction against his cock and writhes into his continuing touch. Steve keeps going, regular as a machine and infinitely more thoughtful, and Peggy clutches him everywhere she's holding him, nape and flank and those lovely big fingers, as she shudders up into a longer, gloriously drawn out crisis, ecstasy tumbling through her as if she's melted into a cataract by all Steve's warmths.

She wants an hundred more, she needs to be able to walk. With what feels the last of her strength Peggy pries her arm from around Steve's shoulders, dropping her hand to push weakly at his wrist. He stills his, pulling back rather quickly, and she shudders from her core outwards and slumps onto his shoulder, gasping as she resolidifies. Steve kisses her forehead tenderly and regards his redolent hand, and Peggy is just about to marshal herself to pull out another handkerchief when he slides his fingers into his mouth and moans, twitching hard against her thigh. "Steve, oh, my," is all she can muster as she watches Steve lick her wetness off his hand with a deep sigh of evident enjoyment.

"You taste so good," he murmurs, eyes midnight dark beneath heavy lids, and Peggy''s overwhelmed with astonishment at this beautiful sensual darling man. She throws herself upwards, planting her knees either side of Steve's thigh as she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him, tasting herself musky on his tongue. How she wants that, to lie back and pull him to her, wet-cheeked between her thighs; Steve moans so sweetly for her, his sturdy arm still wrapped across her back, his damp hand wrapped around his cock, and Peggy's nipples throb inside her brassiere, her skin aches all over beneath the weave of her uniform, all of her longing to be naked and pressed to him as he trembles in her arms. She could shift her hips forward, his fingers felt lovely within her and his cock would fill her so perfectly, how his magnificent body would surge in his thrusts, but they can't, they simply can't risk it, they both have jobs to do until this war ends.

Peggy sighs over Steve's tender lips and pushes back a little, he lets go with a questioning noise and she falls back onto her rump beside him, reaching one hand to touch him, meshing her fingers between his. "Come on, then," she says, brave words in a shaking voice, and boldly picks Steve's pocket for another handkerchief as she manages a smile, as he smiles lopsidedly in return and kisses her again. She lets him lead this round, sliding her fingers in his pace, bracing him with her other arm around his waist as they kiss and stroke and kiss until Steve groans low in his throat, tensing up all over again.

Struck by sudden curiosity, she breaks the kiss and gets her eyes open. "Peggy, Peggy, I'm gonna -- " he breathes, his brows pulling together around a doubled line.

"Yes, Steve, yes," she whispers, watching him gasp into his pleasure, his outslung lower lip and the deep color splashed across his cheekbones, feeling him pulse beneath her hands, his fingers tensing and easing between hers. He trembles to the ends of the hair hanging over his brow, she's reminded of how he looked gleaming and wrecked just after his transformation, and she has to smile.

Steve's eyes ease open, already turned to her, and he smiles too, sweet and wide for just a moment, so that her heart aches with fullness. And then, as she knew it would, his smile shrinks lopsidedly as awareness rushes back, and she sets herself to the necessary tasks. "I think --" he mumbles, looking down at her busy hands and the wrecked handkerchief, and Peggy nods and reaches back to pull out another, taking him by the wrist to scrub his fingers as well.

She should probably let him do this, she belatedly reflects, but there's something calming in putting Steve back together, listening to his breathing steady as she does up his pants and tucks his vest and shirt back in, as she fastens his trousers and belt and smooths his shirt with both hands. He loops his arm loosely around her waist and just allows her, and waits as she adjusts her uniform as well until she feels reasonably neat again, but for how her skin glows all over under her clothes.

Then Steve lets go Peggy's waist, shifting over away from her, and she glances up in alarm. He tips back towards her, tucking his head between her lifted chin and her shoulder, sighing as he leans on her, not his full weight but enough for a respite. Reassured, Peggy leans her cheek on Steve's tousled hair, drapes her arm over his shoulders and wraps the other across his collarbones, and he curves his hand to her waist again as they sit there for a little while, letting their simmering blood cool.

As she sits with Steve in her arms, Peggy turns a question over in her head, trying to polish off injurious edges before she finally lets herself ask. "Steve, I would just like to know, have you been with a woman before?"

Steve wraps his hand around her wrist and raises hers to his lips, smiling against her knuckles. "That bad, huh?"

"I think you know better," she says as tartly as he deserves, and he kisses her fingers again. "I just want to know."

"Yes. For my nineteenth birthday…" and she knows his next word before he even says the name, "Bucky found an adventurous girl with long shiny hair, I still remember Becky's hair. She liked the idea of three in a bed, she liked me well enough. We saw her a few times. Every so often Bucky would meet an especially adventurous dame and -- lady I mean -- " Peggy favors him with a delicate snort, and he stammers delightfully. "--and, and honestly, that tended to work better than all those double dates with his girls' annoyed friends. He wanted to again, when the Commandoes went by Bruges." Jealousy rears up chokingly, and Peggy bites her lip and tells herself not to be ridiculous. "But I, well, Stark's secretary's very pretty but she wasn't worth making you angry, no girl could be. Bucky's so persuasive, but I told him to go out without me."

Peggy blinks in the dimness. "My goodness, I am honored." She squeezes Steve a little, and he smiles into her palm.

But then he draws a deeper, shakier breath. "I probably should've seen this before," he continues, "but our girls… I was always with him too, with them."

"I think this is no exception," Peggy tells him, and Steve sits up to look at her, a crease between his fathomless eyes. "The way you talked about Barnes, from back before I ever expected to meet him, I always knew I shared your heart."

She'd thought to continue that he preceded her and she's content with it, she doesn't expect Steve to shake his head. "It's not -- not quite," he says, caressing her knuckles with his thumb. "It's not that you share it -- you each have it."

Her heart lifting, Peggy draws breath to say she knows not what, but Steve winces with memory, and her one consolation is that here and now she can console him to the best of her ability, opening her arms. Wrapping his around her again, Steve pushes his face into her neck, his shoulders shaking, and Peggy just holds on.

Eventually, Steve's shoulders ease to stillness, he takes a few slower breaths, his lips on Peggy's throat, "At Camp Lehigh, I kept thinking all the time, 'One day I'll tell Bucky about this.' Especially about you. When we went after him in Austria, I never -- I couldn't think of him being dead. I knew he was there to be saved. I -- I'm here to help fight a war, I might die, I know. I'm all right with it. But I never thought he would. I don't know why but I never did."

"It's easier to think of leaving the world than of having one's love taken from it," Peggy tells him, carding her fingers through his hair.

"You've been through this, then?" Steve's hand shifts a little on Peggy's waist, and she nods over his cheek.

"Once I had a sailor boy," she tells him in the cadence of a half-forgotten song. "William was… always smiling, yet steady." His hazel eyes flicker in her thoughts. "He had been studying ballistics, and greatly improved my shooting." Steve hums approval. "He'd left Cambridge to join the Navy, intending to return for his doctorate." And for her, he'd told her, lying in her arms, deep in the night. "When we met I was deciding how best to serve, how far I should push, and he encouraged me to fight in the war with all I have. We only knew each other for a little time, but he changed the course of my life."

Steve brushes his lips along Peggy's chin. "What happened?"

"He died at Dunkirk." The memory rises, always with its strange still lack of surprise, its quiet anguish. "I had been sent to assist with a truck, a makeshift ambulance and later a makeshift hearse. Broken boats and bodies washed up for days, and among them I found his, bled white, still smiling."

"I'm sorry," Steve says, as if his soul isn't bleeding from his own loss, and Peggy tips her face down to kiss his cheek, threading her fingers through his hair. He tips his face up to kiss her mouth, soft and sweet and comforting, and for awhile they trade breaths and kisses, just holding onto each other.

A final kiss, and Steve sits up, aligning their sides. "I am sorry," he murmurs into her hair. "You deserved so much better from me." Peggy looks up and Steve's eyes are shut, he's doubtless watching his supposed lacks parading inside his eyelids. "A lovely evening, flowers and dancing and, maybe, if you'd like, a nice bed afterwards, not a fumble in a closet." Her chest knots up tightly. "I should do better by my best girl."

"Oh, Steve," is all Peggy can choke out. This isn't the bridal bed she would have chosen, but she truly doesn't mind, considering the delight of having him, the sympathetic ache of seeing him grieving. But the words stick in her throat… until she thinks to borrow from a better poet, as she lays her head on Steve's shoulder, her hand over his heart. " _We are but warriors for the working-day,_ " she quotes, and as she recites his shoulders square up beneath her touch. " _Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched with rainy marching in the painful field. But, by the Mass, our hearts are in the trim._ "

"That sounds like Shakespeare." Steve's voice carries further questions.

"It is, _Henry V_. Life during wartime." Peggy finds Steve's hand and meshes their fingers again. "One day we'll have our dance," she tells him, trying not to think of her William promising to return to her. "But for now we should lay hold of what we can have. You're nothing short of wonderful, and I'm glad to be with you, right now, right here."

"Peggy," Steve murmurs, and pulls her tightly to his chest, holding her like a lifeline.

"Steve," she sighs, her cheek pressed to his, her body pressed to his from brow to thigh. She does wish she could have had him naked and joyful in the fullness of time, she imagines Barnes laughing and pushing him forward to her. Clinging to Steve, Peggy envisions Barnes, arms folded, smiling sweetly but with eyes blazing like one of Stark's lasers, and silently promises his shade she'll do her best for this exceptional man they both love.

Drawing breath, Steve shifts exactly the wrong way, collides with a shelf, and says, "Ow!" Peggy shifts back to rub his shoulder, and gets a more level-headed look at him. His mouth is kiss-swollen, his face besmeared with her lipstick and his hair fluffed askew, and she likely looks just as much of a wreck. "I hate to say it, " Steve begins.

"We should clean up," Peggy finishes. "Hopefully we haven't run through all my handkerchiefs."

"I've still got a comb," Steve offers, with the sweetest full-lipped smile.

 

\---v--- 

 

A little while later, Peggy pauses Steve beneath a light fixture to look them both over. They've done well with a little spit and polish, and she even has one handkerchief left; there _is_ a lipstick mark on Steve's cuff, tucked up into his jacket sleeve, and a close observer might notice the freshness of her lipstick and their precisely combed hair and guess the reason for their midnight neatness. But the hall is empty, the building asleep, and they can pass a casual inspection.

Steve just regards her with a gently lofted eyebrow, right up until he yawns, and if she let herself cheer she'd wake him up again. "Sorry," he says, "I guess I'm all done for the night," sharing a conspiratorial grin; he turns towards the stairs to his hall, and Peggy is steeling herself to let him go when his arm tenses in her hold, all of him tensing beside her. She hums the question, and his muttered, "I'll be fine," is low and grim and utterly unconvincing.

The last thing Peggy will do in this moment is let Steve go. "You are a terrible liar," she tells him fondly, steering them around towards the officers' lounge.

Only one lamp is on, turned all the way down. The upholstered armchairs rear up out of the dimness, all empty save one occupied by a soundly sleeping Captain Harkness. Peggy leads Steve to the far corner and presses him into the widest chair there, then undoes his tie again and hands it to him.

He smiles up at her, soft and sleepy-eyed, his long clever fingers making short work of her tie, which he promptly steals. "Steve!" she cries, reaching for it, but he tucks it into his pocket.

"You swiped my handkerchief," he teases, and the only other person in the room is asleep, so Peggy kisses his smiling mouth as she wedges herself in beside him.

It's a pleasantly snug fit. This will surely cause a minor scandal in the morning, but one she can withstand. "Shall I wear yours, then?" Steve is worth it, and more.

"Yeah," he mumbles, tipping his head back. "And I'll wear Bucky's." He winds his arm around her waist, tucking his hand over her ribs. "Peggy, thank you."

"Of course, Steve." she whispers, none too awake herself, leaning on Steve's warmth as she feels his breathing steady towards sleep. "Always."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Need You, Need This](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13226298) by [Sheytsa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheytsa/pseuds/Sheytsa)




End file.
